Down to Earth - December 21st, 2001
"Airplane broker pioneers new atmospheres for women, but keeps feet on the ground"

by Dan Ruck, reprinted from: South Florida Business Journal

Just because you spend your adult life in and around airplanes doesn't mean you have to love flying. Just ask Sharon Hanley.

She's been a female pioneer in the male-dominated world of airplane brokerage and has built a business that spans three continents. Yet, ask about her favorite pastimes and she mentions tennis, not flying.

In fact, the woman who has brokered the purchase and sale of hundreds of airplanes during the past 20 years doesn't own a plane, doesn't even have a pilot's license, although she did take flying lessons for a time.

Thick scrapbooks in her office contain dozens of pictures, but they're mostly pictures of airplanes resting firmly on the ground. And her office is in a bank building in downtown Boca Raton, not alongside a hangar or runway.

"I do like flying and I do sometimes go for rides," said the president and founder of Corporate Airsearch International.

But talk to her for more than a few minutes and you realize it's the people in the aviation business she likes best, not the planes. Hanley is a saleswoman and business owner who just happens to broker airplanes for a living.

"If you had told me 20 years ago I'd be doing what I am today, I never would have believed you," she said with a laugh.

Hanley might not gush enthusiastically about the sleek lines and luxe interiors of a Lear jet or Beechcraft Commander, but she can talk about engine hours, flight logs and maintenance schedules as well as anyone.

"If you don't know what you're talking about, it becomes obvious pretty quickly," she said of the special terminology of the aviation industry.

Hanley may be "pretty cool about it" when it comes to pitching an airplane to a potential buyer on the basis of its good looks, said S.C. "Buster" Middlebrooks of Mobile, Ala., but she's thorough and dependable.

"She's always done what she said she was going to do," said the lawyer, who has bought and sold planes through Hanley. "She'll bend over backwards to help you."

Hanley learned about airplanes while working for about two and a half years as a researcher for an aviation broker in Stamford, Conn. Researching means finding the type of plane a person wants to buy, or a buyer where there's a plane for sale. Twenty years ago, it was done mostly by combing through classified ads and microfiche listings, and by talking to brokers, Hanley said.

She got to know many of the brokers in the business, and when her employer decided in 1983 to quit brokering and move to Oregon, friends suggested she go into business for herself, Hanley said.

"I sold my first plane and was on my way," she said. "At the time, I think there were two women in the country with companies like mine ­ myself and a woman in California."

You don't have to be licensed to broker the purchase or sale of an airplane, and there are no schools that teach the trade. The way into the business is the one Hanley took ­ by learning on the job.

Still, said another woman in the aviation business ­ Lana Fish, a VP at the Aero Toy Store in Fort Lauderdale ­ it isn't hard for females to break into aviation sales "if you know your business."

Fish said she learned the aviation sales business the same way Hanley did, by starting out as a researcher.

Hanley moved to South Florida about 10 years ago with her husband and family. Today, her firm boasts sales associates in offices in Tampa, Paris and South Africa. Hanley's son, J.P. Hanley, and former airline flight operations executive Kevin Grady work with her and a secretary in the Boca Raton office.

The privately owned firm brokers the sale of 10 to 15 planes a year. That means it can register sales of $10 million to $30 million a year, Hanley said, but actual revenues are less because brokerage commissions are usually 2 to 5 percent of the sale price.

In addition to brokering planes, the firm generates revenue by assisting in financing and appraisal.

It can be a glamorous business, but it is also demanding, Hanley said. She recalled once trying to broker a plane sale with an overseas buyer while cooking Thanksgiving dinner at the same time.

"A lot of our business is overseas," Hanley said. That can mean placing or receiving phone calls at 5 a.m. But being available at the convenience of a buyer or seller and maintaining a reputation for fair, dependable service is what makes the difference between having a successful aircraft brokerage business and not, Hanley said.

"A lot of other companies have come and gone" for failure to do that, Hanley said. A customer in Atlanta testified to the solid reputation Hanley enjoys. The president of Data Supplies, an Atlanta office supply company with outlets in Miami, Tampa, Orlando and elsewhere, went to school with a different airplane broker, said the firm's pilot, John McMenamin. But the company prefers to work with Hanley.

So pleased is he and his boss with the service he gets from Hanley that "we do all our business with her," McMenamin said.

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